the Blackwood Manor

Chapter 5: The Quickening Pulse of Time

Valentine woke with a gasp, her heart hammering against her ribs with an unsettling rubatosis.  Moonlight, cold and sharp as a blade, sliced through the gaps in the heavy velvet curtains, painting the unfamiliar room in shades of silver and shadow.  For a moment, she lay frozen, disoriented, the remnants of a vivid dream clinging to the edges of her mind like cobwebs.  A dream of cold whispers, of spectral figures with eyes like empty sockets, and a bone-deep sense of adomania, the terrifying certainty that something wicked this way comes.

She sat up, pushing back the heavy velvet drapes, and stared out at the moonlit gardens below.  The world outside seemed to hold its breath, trapped in a moment of suspended animation.  Even the wind, which had whispered through the eaves like a restless spirit the night before, was still.  Yet, despite the illusion of tranquility, a sense of unease prickled at the back of Valentine’s neck.  It was the same feeling she’d experienced ever since their arrival at Blackwood Manor, a subtle but persistent monachopsis, a feeling of being out of place, of being…observed.

Downstairs, the rest of the group were gathered in the kitchen, their voices a discordant symphony of forced cheerfulness and nervous laughter.  It was an anecdoche, a conversation where no one was truly listening, each of them too lost in their own thoughts, their own growing unease.  Even Maya, usually the effervescent heart of their group, seemed subdued, her usual exuberance replaced by a brittle gaiety that did little to mask the worry lines etched around her eyes

Valentine took a seat at the long, scarred table, accepting a steaming mug of tea from Chloe, who offered a tight-lipped smile in lieu of her usual effusive greeting.  The warmth of the mug spread through Valentine’s chilled fingers, but it did little to dispel the icy knot of apprehension that had settled in her stomach.  She caught Liam’s eye across the table, his usual cynicism replaced by a look of genuine concern.  For a moment, their gazes locked, the opia, the unspoken intensity of that shared moment, speaking volumes.  They were both aware, acutely so, that something was wrong, terribly wrong, with Blackwood Manor.

The days that followed passed in a blur of forced merriment and mounting dread.  The grand old house, once a source of fascination and inspiration, now felt oppressive, its shadows seeming to deepen with each passing hour.  Time itself seemed to warp within the manor’s ancient walls, stretching and compressing with unsettling irregularity.  One moment, the hours would crawl by, each tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway, a hammer blow against the silence.  The next, they would vanish in the blink of an eye, and entire afternoons swallowed whole by a zenosyne so profound that it left Valentine feeling disoriented, unmoored from the familiar rhythms of time.

Only in the library, surrounded by the comforting scent of old paper and the silent companionship of forgotten stories, did Valentine find a moment of respite.  Here, amidst the towering shelves and dusty tomes, she could almost believe that the unease she felt was nothing more than a figment of her imagination, fueled by the gothic atmosphere of the manor and her own overactive imagination.  But as the shadows lengthened and the sun began its final descent, casting long, distorted fingers of darkness across the library floor, even the vellichor, the bittersweet wistfulness of the used books, couldn’t quite dispel the growing certainty that something wicked this way comes.